You would think it would be quite hard to ‘lose’ a VF Valiant.
Not so.
50 years ago, in the days before computers that now make end of year stocktake a push-button breeze, Ramsey Bros staff would conduct the annual count by hand including all of the farm machinery and the Chrysler passenger car dealership.
At the time, there were several buildings in Cleve housing Ramsey Bros inventory with the most innocuous an old Nissen Hut – a semi-cylindrical shelter with a corrugated iron covering more at home in a World War II army camp.
This particular stocktake, for some reason Eddy Ward decided to check the old ‘Hut’ which was rarely used and often overlooked.
Hauling the heavy front door open, he was rewarded with the last thing he expected to find:
“Bugger me, there’s a brand new Valiant.—
The car had been sitting there for two years having missed the previous year’s count.
In pristine condition and safely protected from the elements in its own little garage, the ‘vanishing’ Valiant had been driven up from Adelaide and carefully stowed in the hut with the intent to put it on display in the main street dealership when there was more room.
Instead, the car was parked, inadvertently forgotten … and doomed never to have a long life on the road.
Once discovered with the battery charged and the cobwebs peeled from the side mirrors, fellow Ramsey Bros director, Brenton Ramsey, ended up with the car only to write it off in the scrub within six months in an unfortunate crash.
Luckily, Brenton was OK. But the car did not survive and was laid to rest permanently on the scrap heap.
So, for those of you who are now thinking it might be worth checking out other disused buildings in the Cleve district in case there is another new car waiting to be discovered – don’t waste your energy.
“We’re a bit better at stock control nowadays— Eddy laughed.
And from that day forward in the 1970s, the Nissen Hut was checked every 30 June just to be sure.
